An Exclusive Interview with Stephen J. Lendman on the Post-Trump United States, Palestine, Syria, and Iran [Part 1]

Post-Trump era has many specific features that distinguishes it from the past. Stephen Lendman talks on the issue of “United States and Donald Trump; The horizon of a New World”. He believes the protest in America are manipulated by the power structure of the Country. Mr. Lendman also emphasizes on the fact that there is no much difference between trump and his predecessors. He finds the campaign promises about Israel-Palestine issue in opposition with his decisions so far.

Here is the first part of the Interview:

Our first question is about one of your posts in your own blog named “War and Humanity”. In the beginning of the post you write that you find all the presidents of the United States in the same line from the previous ones to Obama and Trump. You think the system is not changing with the change of one president. I want to know your exact belief about the system of decision-making in the United States and the role of people in this and the role of people and election in changing the decisions or the lead of life in the Unites states.

Stephen Lendman: On the one hand Allyn, the names and faces of politicians change. We have a two-party system. It’s really a one-party state with two wings. And Republicans and the very undemocratic democrats. I don’t call the democratic party, because there is nothing democratic about them. So I call them the democrat party and Republican. It’s really a deplorable system with a take-turns governance. But on all important issues, they’re pretty much on the same page. When It comes to war and peace, which is a lot war and not very much peace, corporate favoritism which gets worse. The big corporations consolidate to even greatest size, the little firms will have hard time competing. And the laws of America, especially in the post-9/11 era, “police state” laws began by the Bush administration, hardened by Obama administration, and it looks like Trump will harden them further. So, people are terribly abused and the whole idea is for America to continue its imperial project to have unchallenged control on planet Earth, its resources, its populations, and it does this by either waging endless wars, assassinating the leader of the countries they don’t like, instituting its own control, and it causes great harshness for the people of America to policies like neo-liberal harshness that your country [Chile] very much is affected by the same thing.

So, you believe that people do not choose, they are chosen to choose something for the United States. The system is choosing them for their future.

Stephen Lendman: Voting in America is a waste of time. Ordinary people like me have no say about anything. America is run by that forces and they basically get the choose to people who’ll need them. Trump is apparently an aberration. He was a long shot. He was vilified from the time he entered the presidential race in June 2015. So, all this time during the campaign, after he won the election last November before he was inaugurated, forces wanted him delegitimized, undermined, and even now, as you and I speak, there is a campaign to oust him from office. It’s really shocking Allyn, because he has the same deplorable policies as Bush/Cheney, Clintons, Obama, and they still want him ousted. Why? Because he really won someone in the office that they would control much more easily. Trump is a little bit of a loose cannon. They are certain what he might do or not do. But based on what he’s done so far, he’s doing what all the others did. So, I don’t know what all this fuss is about. Maybe They’re so hell-bent of getting rid of him.

The Palestinian-Israeli peace is impossible based on what is proceeding. He (Trump) is so one-sided for Israel. Regardless of the fact that he wants to moves the Embassy, which I don’t think he will, but anything he’s done or anything he says is completely one-sided for Israel.

They cant’s see through the fog of the policy of wanting him eliminated. They get somebody like mike Pence as a president to put in his place because he is a match-move. He can be easily controlled, but Trump isn’t so easily controlled.

At the first speech of President Trump after the announcement of the result of the election, he said he’ll be trying to heal the wounds of division after the election. But what we saw in actuality was the reverse exactly. Even maybe for the first time in the history of the United States, we see that many states are trying to get independence from the central state. California is the main one and there are many polls that talked about the issue. I’m not talking about the probability of this. My question is how do you find this and how the state and the system and, in specific, Mr. Trump are going to this with this?

Stephen Lendman: Most of the protests against Trump were manipulated. That forces of George Soros the billionaire, others like him, move on change.org organization financed by Soros and others to instigate Anti-Trump protest to instigate policies to have him removed from office. So whatever I see, protest is going on and still going on and the last day or so, riots in Berkley, California. I need to take this a trace value. The first question in my mind is who is manipulating this? who is behind this? who is getting people to come out? I read an article some months ago; the people were manipulated in Seattle and another city where people were recruited online or offered money to come out and protest against Trump. So, people have been recruited, they’ve been payed, They’ve been fed information. This is not a real protest.

Ordinary people like me have no say about anything. America is run by that forces and they basically get the choose to people who’ll need them.

I remember Allyn, back to the Vietnam war, I don’t think anybody was paying this people to come out. It began on college campuses, there were professors involved, students involved and really grew intensity. But what is going on today is manipulated. I am no Trump supporter. I want to make that clear. I’m very much against him. The difference between Trump and Clinton; I preferred him to her. Although I re-emphasize that there is no difference between the two. But I fear Hillary Clinton, because she was so intensely opposed to Russia. Then the risk of a nuclear war was very high. And I thought that if we get Trump, we can erase the possibility of nuclear war. And now I realized I was fully wrong, because the risk still exists. I don’t think Trump wants to do a nuclear war, but the people in his administration; Mattis, Defense secretary, the new national secretary advisor, McMaster; these people are militantly anti-Russia. These people could start a nuclear war even without authorization from Trump. This is a very serious situation. And if they still protest against them again, I don’t trust them. I don’t believe that they’re legitimate. There is a big difference between disliking him and going out and committing violence in opposition to him and I think that’s manipulated.

Let us shift the questions to the Middle East; Palestine. Trump’s attitude about Palestine is not clear enough to talk about. Obama ended his presidency abstaining on a resolution in UN. An unprecedented act that was shocking. And Trump’s reaction to it was shocking too. But no more movement was done out of President Trump in his 56-day presidency. How do you find the future of the relations with Israel and movement about Palestine and their struggle?

Stephen Lendman: I’m Jewish and I’m a severe Israeli critic. Anybody who knows me knows that. I don’t think I’d be allowed in Israel. And if I did land at the Tel Aviv airport, I would have been taken at the custody, put through intensive grilling, very very harsh, maybe they keep me for a day or two. And then, after beating me physically and mainly emotionally, they deported me. They would not allow me to come in. If I had gone there, which I don’t want to go, I wouldn’t go to Israel. I’d got to go to occupied Palestine and they never allow me to do that. Trump, on the campaign said, he wants to be the most pro-Israel president in US history. He said he’d move America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He’s back off from that now. And I don’t think he’ll do it. He’s gotten advice from people like king Abdullah of Jordan explaining to him that if he did this, it would have been a firestorm in the region. I don’t think he wants that to happen. He wants to serve Israel. He wants to benefit Israel. But he doesn’t want to do something that would be self-defeating. He also says he wants to do the impossible; be the first US president to come up with a deal. He is out of the deal. The Palestinian-Israeli peace is impossible based on what is proceeding. He is so one-sided for Israel. Regardless of the fact that he wants to moves the Embassy, which I don’t think he will, but anything he’s done or anything he says is completely one-sided for Israel.

He has the same deplorable policies as Bush/Cheney, Clintons, Obama, and they still want him ousted. Why? Because he really won someone in the office that they would control much more easily. Trump is a little bit of a loose cannon.

He’s appointing a person as the lead guy for Israel-Palestine peace that is a Zionist extremist. How could a Zionist extremist ever be even-handed in any negotiations between Israel and Palestine? Impossible. The man he appointed as his ambassador to Israel; A Zionist extremist. Another man, Who I forgot his name, was appointed on trade relations to Israel; another Zionist extremist. Exactly the wrong kind of people to appoint. Any kind of even-handed relations to bring about peaceful negotiations, to the situation in the middle east, that have got on since May of 1948, Harry Truman, America’s president then, right after midnight of 15th of May being the first leader to recognize Israel and in the June, 1967, Israel of the 1948 took 78% of the Israel from Palestine and then the rest. But in 1947, The UN declared Jerusalem an international city. If Trump moved America’s embassy to Jerusalem, America would be the only country of the world recognizing Israel with its embassy there. I think he realized it would be a stupid decision to make. I don’t think he is going to do it. Just like he said he would denounce the Iran nuclear deal. I don’t think he will do it. I think what he wants to do on that is to be so harsh on Iran. Then Iran would be doing something to walk away from the deal. Then he can have Iran for breaching the deal not himself. I think that’s the way he is going to proceed. I’m very disappointed on what he is doing. My ultimate fear is that he will continue the ongoing and prior wars and start more of them. Iran will be the most likely target.